Have you ever heard of nattou (納豆)? It’s fermented beans that are slimy, sticky, and smell like socks. I quite like nattou, but many foreigners (and some Japanese) think it’s utterly repellent. Sounds like the perfect food for a speed eating contest!
If you are not familiar with nattou, here is a video of people trying it for the first time. (Like I said, nattou is good! Don’t let the smell put you off. Or the texture. Or, pretty much, everything about it.)
And now, here is the speed-eating contest that was just held in the Japanese city of Mito, which is famous for its nattou.
There were two parts to the event: One was eating a bowl of nattou with rice in under a few minutes, while the other was just eating big bowls of nattou.
In the men’s division, last year’s winner once again came out on top. “I’m satisfied because I shaved two minutes off last year’s time,” said the two-time fermented bean champion.
Below, watch people bravely shovel down bowls of nattou (video courtesy of FNN):
Comments
14 responses to “Speed Eating Japan’s ‘Most Disgusting’ Food”
Had no idea it was supposed to be disgusting. My sister keeps mentioning how her boyfriend and his family are nuts for the stuff, and they’re of like… American heritage or something.
The country that lays claim to Vegemite shouldn’t be throwing stones, I suspect. 🙂
But Vegemite is delicious*.
*When used sparingly, its not peanut butter people.
most people i know who DONT like vegemite, have had a bad experience with it when they were younger. they all thought it was a chocolate, nutella like substance so they slathered it on. and this were scarred for life 🙂
toast + butter + vegemite + cheese = perfect lazy breakfast 🙂
Heh, I had a similar kind of thing. I secretly scooped out a whole bunch of it from the jar and went to eat it, but then was grossed out by it so ran to my parents’ bathroom and spat it out in the sink.
…and for some reason didn’t think to rinse the sink out, so Mum ended up finding the mess and I got in trouble for it anyway 😛
Replace toast with Crumpets :oD
That’s pretty much what happened to me, except that it was on a camping trip… so I couldn’t even wash my mouth out.
I slather it on more than I do peanut butter. It’s great.
Yeah but youve been conditioned to it like i have. To a new eater thatd be like biting into acid lol.
I ride past the Vegemite factory every morning. That smell is the closest thing to heaven.
Nattou is rancid beans left to stew in their own grossness until it becomes a sticky, gooey mess that coats everything in a putrid smell. Old socks was a pretty solid description.
That said, nattou with mustard and soy sauce on rice is pretty good. It only took me 3 years to develop a taste for it.
Vegemite doesn’t even hold a candle.
There was an Iron Chef episode that had nattou as a theme ingredient. Didn’t seem to be that disgusting.
Japanese cooking show using traditional Japanese ingredient, cooked by Japanese chefs and judged by people of Japanese nationality seem to like it?
I thought the grossest Japanaese food would be eating this ‘lil guy, the Japanese Giant Salamander http://jacksword.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/salamander.jpg